Exploding Gall Bladders , Morphine and Dry Docks

Missions all sorted , mates lined up , air tix booked , journey on the Pelagic booked , new boards designed , cut , finished and off to be glassed . Madpirate took a deep breath and set into the normal routine of , counting down the sleeps before Mentawai day and doing some serious regulation mental of over frothing . The wave maps on long range forecast were looking pretty healthy , all systems go ..

18 Sleeps out , Attack 3; Madpirate has a weird cramp , burning pain sensation under his right wing , nothing to worry about as this has happened before , Madpirate is wondering what has caused it this time.

Remembering Attack 1; which happened three plus years ago , when the Madpirate , after 3 weeks of the same sweat inducing painful cramp , was finally reduced to rolling about on the floor curling up into a foetal position alternating with rolling on foam roller and either reaching behind and reverse punching himself in the back , or slamming his back into the wall , the pain finally subsided . Madpirate self diagnosed as allergic reaction from having eaten too many peppermints to stay awake during 14 plus hour shits of driving. On this night the pain finally went away , and Madpirate has not touched a peppermint since..

Attack no 2; was much milder episode than the first one and took place 5 months ago , Madpirate was with family on yacht , anchored off Tangalooma , when another crazy cramp attack manifested itself and then went away after a half hour of sweating in pain and rolling about on the floor.. No more Blue Energade figures Dr Madpirate.

Anyhow , so Madpirate is focused entirely on this upcoming Mentawais trip , Fine tuning his Soloshot Camera gear ( www.filmyourself.com.au —> Shameless plug 🙂 ) and fussing over board details, whether the glassing will be done on time , as well as spending time with GForce down at Snapper during the Quikky Pro .
In the midst of this one of Madpirates work crew ask for 4 days off . No problem Madpirate will cover his duties.
And so it started , Wednesday Night , the cramp is a dull ache , and Madpirate is now casting suspicion on coconut water , which he has been consuming in fair quantities… Thursday its getting worse , Friday the pain is not dissimilar to what Madpirate would expect if someone were to heat up a fish gaff and stab it under your shoulder blade , no option Madpirate had to suck it up and work through the shift.
Saturday , Madpirate has consumed enough painkillers and muscle cramp relaxants to immobilise a bull elephant , like something from The Night of Zombies , Madpirate worked through his shift , went home and headed off to Rainbow Place to say goodbye to GForce and Lu as contest over, they were heading back to Saffaland.
Pain started to kick in again and after a bit of rolling about Madpirate helped move some of Jordy and G’s stuff down to their car , Madpirate bade the Smith crew farewell , safe travels and headed home in some discomfort , pain eased off a bit through Sunday but at about 3 on Monday morning it reached a level beyond the Madpirates threshold and at 4:30 Monday morning Madpirate drove to hospital to get some Industrial strength painkillers .
Hospital crew took one look at the Madpirate and decided he was a captive and was not going anywhere until properly medically examined , Dr quickly organised morphine for the long suffering Madpirate and at last the pain level was eased back to easily manageable proportions…

Questions asked of the Pirate ,
Q: do you know how jaundiced you look A: No I surf its my tan..
Q: And your eyes ? A: been in a bit too much pain to be looking in mirrors , caused some eye rolling and head shaking amongst the Medical Fraternity.

Anyhow the rest of Monday was a blur of pipes , tubes and blood samples being taken , in between being wheeled off for X rays and other tests , and Morphine , morphine , morphine —

Morphine , Madpirate loves you …

Tuesday morning Med Staff are still wondering what to do with the enigmatic Madpirate as Xrays are not giving them what they expect , when suddenly , through the Morphine haze Madpirate is lashed with the most excruciating brain shredding pain he has ever felt , the machines start bleeping and freaking out and Nursing staff are suddenly all over the show , the curtain is drawn , more morphine administered and the Madpirate is thinking , okay so this is how I go , drugged to the tits on Morphine and fussed over by nurses — not bad …

Arrangements are hurriedly made , Madpirate is whipped off to the MRI machine , which , incidentally is not a bad place to be when on the edge of morphine induced hallucinations , the white screen a foot above Madpirates face is a perfect place for aforementioned hallucinations to manifest , added with eerie robotic clicks, tweets, geary whirrs and beeps the whole thing was immensely satisfying , sort like a trance party for one
Morphine , Madpirate loves you …

Upshot of it was Madpirate was rushed off to surgery , where an expected 45 minute keyhole deal turned itself into a 4 1/2 hour major open surgery , this due to the fact that Madpirate’s much abused gall bladder had given up its stubbornly protracted yet ultimately futile battle for survival and had apparently exploded with spectacularly messy results.
This Gallbladder surrender spoiled everyone in the theaters day , including Madpirates as that spelled the end of any slim hope he had of still boarding the Pelagic 2 weeks hence ..
Mad Pirate came to 2 hours after surgery , shortly before the decision was made to take him off to ICU , and being back in the land of the living , Madpirate was wheeled back to his ward to be completely surprised by the most welcome sight of his sister..

Pirate replete with staples

What follows from there was a tedious litany of bedridden sulking , whilst mates were scoring perfect waves in Paradise , Madpirate was slowly working through the trail to recovery….

Fast forward 6 weeks and Surgeon clears Madpirate to go surfing , which just happened to co-incide with some epic cyclonic conditions , Madpirates body was apparently able , but his mind was not fear of splitting in half , despite Dr’s assurance to the contrary dominated Madpirates thought pattern , everytime he hefted a trusty surflance underarm.
Week 7 and the Madpirate finally waxed up his brand new boards hoiked off to a slow and fat looking Snapper and went surfing , taking it easy on day one Madpirate was most encouraged, and on day 2 hit some chunky DBah, by day 3 Madpirate had survived some heinous beatings out at D’Bah and on day 4 (today Friday 8 May) Madpirate is 100% mentally and physically back on the horse — YEEEEHAAAAAAA

Ah and it might be blazingly obvious by now , DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ASK MADPIRATE FOR MEDICAL ADVICE , it wont end well for you